


What Greater Gift

by redgear



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-20
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2018-02-21 23:30:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2486228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redgear/pseuds/redgear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Why, Matthew Cuthbert," Marilla said, turning from the stove, spoon in hand, and peering at him rather sharply.  "I said the day you brought that child home that I believed she had bewitched you.  If I had known how right I was, well!"</p><p>Matthew shifted uncomfortably where he stood, not quite giving ground. He did not feel at all bewitched, although he had never given a great deal of thought to what bewitchment might feel like.  He had an uneasy suspicion, now that Marilla mentioned it again, that it might be a good deal like some of Anne's talk, with fairies and ponds with strange names and whatnot.  "I only thought..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Greater Gift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thesleepingsatellite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesleepingsatellite/gifts).



> Thanks to Jen for the beta!

Anne was in disgrace. The whole of Green Gables seemed to ring with it, as if the walls still echoed with the single dramatic sob she had let slip before flying up the stairs to her gable room; or, perhaps, with flashes of Marilla's lingering temper, though she had not said one word since Anne's abrupt departure. Her frown spoke for itself well enough.

"Well now, Marilla," said Matthew after only a few moments, rather surprising them both. In the time before Anne, he would have gone out to the barn for a little while, perhaps, or to the fields, to check over the finished harvest a second or third time. Even now, he felt the quivering of his nerves with every word he spoke. "Would it really be such a trouble?"

"Why, Matthew Cuthbert," Marilla said, turning from the stove, spoon in hand, and peering at him rather sharply. "I said the day you brought that child home that I believed she had bewitched you. If I had known how right I was, well!"

Matthew shifted uncomfortably where he stood, not quite giving ground. He did not feel at all bewitched, although he had never given a great deal of thought to what bewitchment might feel like. He had an uneasy suspicion, now that Marilla mentioned it again, that it might be a good deal like some of Anne's talk, with fairies and ponds with strange names and whatnot. "I only thought..."

"You only thought to give that child her own way," Marilla said severely. 

She did not quite point her spoon at him, but Matthew felt as if she had. "I suppose it wouldn't do any harm?"

"I suppose you're not interfering! You spoil her terribly, there's the harm. And a cat, Matthew, a cat in Green Gables!" The spoon swung ominously towards the old cushion that Anne had repurposed into a cat-bed, upon which a tiny black kitten had slept peacefully through the tempest it had caused. It raised its head a very little, as if recognizing it was being spoken of, and silently blinked round, pale green eyes, uncannily like its fled champion's. Marilla's spoon lowered itself.

"It does seem like a quiet little thing," Matthew ventured after a moment. "And it _is_ cold out, Marilla."

"Oh, for goodness' sake!"

"Cordelia really is so awfully quiet," a subdued voice said from the doorway. Anne appeared in it a moment later, her eyes reddened with crying. "You'll never hear a peep out of her, Marilla, I promise. I'll keep her like a princess in a tower, and in the spring we'll go outside together and play under the plum tree and you shan't have to even look at us ever again."

"I should be surprised if I did hear a peep," Marilla said, "instead of a mew. Unless you've decided to keep a flock of chickens in the parlour."

A fresh tear loomed ominously in Anne's eye. Marilla noted it grimly, and the silent slump of Matthew's shoulders, as well. And yet the kitten continued to watch the proceedings without inserting so much as a purr in its own defense; neither had it moved from its cushion to insert itself underfoot. Truth be told, Marilla might not have noticed it at all, tucked away as it was, if Anne hadn't kept glancing at it while sorting the beans. "Cordelia?" she said, just as the tear threatened to fall. It came out rather less bitingly than she had hoped, despite her raised eyebrow.

"Cordelia Guinevere Diana Montmorency Fitzgerald," Anne said, raising her chin determinedly despite the tremble in her voice, quite firmly convinced of the properness of this name for a half-pound kitten. But she dropped the stubbornness after only a few moments, rushing into the kitchen and clutching tightly to the back of the nearest chair in a passion. "Oh, Marilla, please let me keep her. If she died it would be simply awful! I couldn't bear it, I know I couldn't. Such a dear little kitten. Isn't she just the most precious one you've ever seen? She's ever so soft, just like fairy silk, or rather just like I've always imagined fairy silk ought to be. And she was all alone, oh! Just like a changeling. Do you suppose fairies change their kittens for ours? She was tucked away under a leaf just beside Idlewild, and I should never have seen her at all if I hadn't been looking down because Diana had had to go home so early and I had the most awful feeling of melancholy, because the moon was just right for it, you know, and then the leaf moved. I thought it was the wind, but of course it wasn't windy at all, and I thought perhaps it might be a ghost, since it's the right time for that, or a fairy, but of course it wasn't midnight yet, or maybe the spirit of one of the birches, but when I gathered up all my courage and lifted up the leaf, there she was. I had to name her Diana, of course, since my thoughts were on her, but I thought it might not be proper to really call her Diana, _you_ know, Marilla. I really was trying to be proper, I promise. But she has fur exactly the color of the hair someone named Cordelia ought to have, just the pure black velvet of a starless night. It's ever so romantic. And she seemed so queenly that Guinevere followed naturally, and by the time we reached Green Gables it had simply worked itself out without me having to think about it all, as if she had always been called that. Perhaps she named herself. But I love her dearly, Marilla, I do. I feel as if I have always loved her."

Most of this fervent speech had shattered on the iron walls of Marilla's determination, but two phrases had pierced the gates: _she was all alone_ and _if she died_. It was sinful to spoil the girl, she was quite sure, and yet she remembered very well when Anne herself had been no more than a changeling, without anyone in the world, and she had no doubt that one orphan child could recognize another, even on the blackest night. She felt herself wavering at the thought and pursed her lips all the harder for it.

"Well now," Matthew said quietly into the breathless silence after Anne had finished, "I dunno but it's getting late, isn't it? Suppose the kitten stays in the barn tonight, and we think it over some until the morning?"

At this, Anne opened her mouth, half a hopeful gasp, half intending to declare her desire to sleep outside all night in the manger alongside her newest and second-dearest friend; but, seeing a warning glint in Marilla's eye, she promptly shut it again.

"A cat in the barn couldn't do any harm," Marilla had to admit. "And it might grow into a mouser, even if it is a runt now. All right, Anne," for Anne had let go of the chair and fairly leapt across the kitchen to the kitten's side, sobbing ecstatically, "I'm sure Matthew will help you find a warm place for it in the straw."

Matthew smiled a little shamefacedly under her sarcasm and slipped out the door; Anne, Cordelia Guinevere, and Marilla's fourth-best cushion followed a few moments later, with the sniffling ends of Anne's jubilation trailing behind them. 

Marilla turned back to the soaking beans and gave them a good, solid stir. "A kitten," she said, "in Green Gables."

But somehow the words no longer sounded as shocking as they ought.


End file.
